Training with a simple watch ~ Just Before Take Off

After using for four years modern triathlete watches, my mindset changed. Time spent on training is now all I need to know and track down.

So what's the mindset behind this behaviour shift? A year ago I was going crazy about my TRI watch and I was using it as a complete tool for all sports and as an everyday smartwatch. As the majority of athletes I had connected Strava to my watches online platform and after every syncing my trainings was automatically uploaded to my Strava account as well.

These watches syncing with online platforms and social online sports platforms are great but ... I think that by using them for a long period of time, the pure satisfaction of just training is lost in all that chaotic amount of data that was collected and analysed. With two online platforms to check my trainings and my training progress, I was eventually spending twice the time to deal with that. I tried to keep up replying on comments from acquintances and friends on both platforms that we were virtually connected in this sports matrix net. But at the end, trainings were done without any physical presence of all them. Athens and Attica is a large region and friends are scattered everywhere. So it was a miracle if we could meet for a Sunday ride. Having different distance goals on schedule (friends training for a half Iron race and me for a full Iron tri race) made it ...impossible to ride together and have fun and stay social while working out. Even at stadium, on the track. Each one is running on his pace, athletes of different fitness levels, so I rarely trained together with someone for more than five laps. It's frustrating to go slower than your slow jog pace and it gets exhausting too early if you pace higher than usual and try to keep it for a long time.

From my point of view, a "weekend warrior" type of athlete, keeping a track of hours spent on sports is fine. Who cares if my running cadence is 170 or 180 when I am training overweight and every time I am risking of an injury? Why should I be worried about higher than usual average heart rate when I am training without a good sleep last night?

Does checking a watch ever made us happier?

These last months I was thinking whether technology helps up on our sports or it gets frustrating when we reach our potential and we can't go better unless go absolutely nuts with our sport and sacrifice everything (friends, time, family and more more money). I have friends that are trying their best to improve swimming pace and swim faster than 1'30'' per 100 meters for six months. It isn't easy and they are constantly unhappy about it.
And what I always see in races is unsatisfied people finishing that are nagging about time instead of being happy for finishing. Where is the joy of doing sports if racing 2 minutes slower than expected in a half marathon ruins your day?

Stopwatch function

So, I am using a stopwatch to track hours spent on my bike trainer. It is ...so primitive that I LOVE it. You just press start and ...stop when you are done. You can even stop the timer if you take a pee break and restart it later.

In following picture there is my everyday tool, my old Casio G-Shock Dw9000 after finishing a 2 hours and 41 seconds ride on the trainer.

Casio G-Shock Dw9000 as a stopwatch on indoor cycling

When I am about to train in darkness watching a film on my laptop I use my newer Solar re-chargable Casio G-Shock GR-8900A-1ER that comes with a working ...light! (my older green casio's light is dead)

Solar Casio G-Shock GR-8900A-1ER used as a stopwatch in low light conditions

Countdown Timer function

Except stopwatch that you absolutely train freely as much as you want, you can set a countdown timer in the watch and stop your training when it sets off. This is a useful function for running as well. Supposedly areas around your house are level and you want to go on jogging for 30 minutes. You can set the countdown timer to 15 minutes, start running away from home and return towards to your house when the alarm sets off. If you keep on a steady pace you will be back on home on double the time of the alarm or so (2*15). Note that fitness level can affect your return home time especially when running longer distances. Not all people can run the last 10km as fast as the first 10km in a 20km long run. Tiredness do play its role here!
Finally along with countdown timer, you can change mode and start the stopwatch as well and track the total time of running!

Simple Watches means ... peace of MIND

Wristwatches can really be your everyday companion and tool to track down time. But it can also be a ...small nightmare. In a super dizzy era of information having a modern watch with "smart" capabilities can really be a modern nightmare. You can't really find peace with notifications vibrating and draining your watch battery levels making it need charging every few days.

So a simple watch that it's battery lasts for years is truly a blessing! There are also Solar watches out there (like the one I recently bought, the Casio G-Shock Gr-8900a-1er that doesn't require battery change every 2-3 years and auto-charge and preserve their battery levels when exposed in days light.

But you can do all basic time tracking spending less than 20$ in a watch like this classic Casio F-91W model of the 80s :

Casio F-91-W

or ... wait ! I have a another option, a Casio Classic W-734-2AVEF for a little more. Just 2-3$ more than the F-91-W you get a casio with 60 Lap memory (Extremely handful feature if you are running in a 400m track and need to know exactly your distance. You just start your stopwatch and just press LAP button when you complete a full lap. 60*400m = 24.000m ... Who would run 24km in a track? (Me, I have run 30km in the track on my last IM preparation!!!)

Casio W-734

That's all for now. As I am already some weeks into training with simple primitive ... sport watches I will get back to you soon with a clip on how I use my simple watches in sports! :-)

George

Tracking trainings, the simplest way it can get.

So ... how the heck can someone track trainings with this primitive way of doing sports?
Pen and paper will do fine, as it always did. Can't fail, doesn't need internet connection and guess, it's completely ad free and simple.

About George Kontogiannis

🇬🇷Father of three 👫🙆 Marathoner 🏃🏼 Triathlete🏊🚴🏼🏃🏼 AlmiraMan💪🏻 Trumpeteer🎺 Novel Writer 📝 Life is too short to wait. Live today! ✨✨✨ www.justbeforetakeoff.com.